Mars Lakes: Could Have Hosted Life Billion Years Longer, Study Suggests

The red planet may have been capable of supporting life for a longer time period than scientists had previously thought. According to a new study, some of the lakes and streams on Mars formed just two to three billion years ago, an epoch by when, researchers believed, the planet had lost the majority of its atmosphere and therefore was too cold to host surface liquid water.

"We discovered valleys that carried water into lake basins that filled and overflowed, indicating there was a considerable amount of water on the landscape during this time," said Sharon Wilson, study leader. Additionally, one of the newly discovered Martian lakes was similar in size to California's huge Lake Tahoe, and it flowed over to "Heart Lake", a massive basin that held more water (670 cubic miles) than Lake Ontario (393 cubic miles) and Lake Erie (116 cubic miles) combined.

The age of the lakes on Mars were estimated by checking the valleys associated with the concerned water bodies, especially if they shaped into the debris aprons that surround the 22 impact crater areas whose ages were approximately known. Incidentally, according to observations based on data from NASA's Curiosity rover, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and other missions, it was previously already established that Mars had surface liquid water bodies around 3.7 billion years ago. The new study stretches the time span of the presence of lakes and streams on the Martian surface, which means the planet was capable of hosting life for nearly a billion years longer than first thought.

"A key goal for Mars exploration is to understand when and where liquid water was present in sufficient volume to alter the Martian surface and perhaps provide habitable environments," said Rich Zurek, MRO scientist. The recent findings are most likely to lead to more studies about how the frozen planet warmed up enough to allow a period of flowing water, as per reports. One of the theories forwarded include the extreme change in the red planet's axial tilt that led to more illumination of its polar ice.